Florida resident Anya Cook and her husband Derek were so excited to be finally pregnant after years of infertility and miscarriages. However, their hopes were dashed when Cook experienced amniotic fluid leaking out of her during dinner with her husband. “It felt like a gush of water being thrown at me,” she revealed in an exclusive preview of her on-camera interview with Impact x Nightline, which will be available to stream on December 14 on Hulu. “Never in my wildest dreams did I even think that was my amniotic fluid that was leaking out of me,” Cook said.
It turned out that Cook suffered from a pre-viable preterm premature rupture of membranes under 20 weeks of pregnancy, which can cause significant and deadly complications for expecting mothers. The couple’s first action was to go to a familiar hospital for care and treatment, the only hospital Cook has gone to for her whole life. Unfortunately for Cook, she lives in Florida, and in April 2022, the state passed a restrictive law that banned abortion after 15 weeks, with the only exceptions being “a fatal fetal abnormality” or “serious risk” to the pregnant person. Only a year later, the ban was expanded to exclude abortions after 6 weeks. So, for Cook, who was just over 15 weeks pregnant and early in her second trimester, that meant her options for thorough medical care were limited. As she wasn’t “sick enough” yet, to qualify for induced labor, even though her doctor assured her that she would be soon enough. Because Cook’s life wasn’t in danger, she didn’t qualify for an emergency exception to the abortion rule. But instead, she was discharged with antibiotics and told to return if her symptoms — pelvic pain and bleeding — worsened.
According to OBGYN Joia Crear Perry, MD, the baby is inside a sac that contains the fluid that keeps it safe, and once it has a hole in it, there is a risk of death for both the baby and Mom from sepsis.
“[The doctor] told me in that very moment that you can get an infection, possibly sepsis and die,” Cook said. “All I’m thinking is, ‘Well I’m at the hospital, right? I’m okay. I won’t die because I’m at the hospital.’”
She continued: “I looked at my husband and that’s when reality hit me, because he’s looking at me and he’s saying, ‘No, babe. I don’t think you’re understanding what the doctor is saying.’”
“The nurse asked if she could pray for me,” Cook said. “All I knew was that I was not going to survive what was happening.”